Budget 2017: Revenue Commissioners to get €5m to hire 50 and boost ICT

The Office of the Revenue Commissioners is about to receive a major boost as part of Budget 2017, with an investment of €5m to create 50 jobs and overhaul its ICT systems.

With the fallout of Budget 2017 beginning, one of the most notable points from a careers perspective comes from the Office of the Revenue Commissioners. It has announced it will be upping its resources, with the creation of 50 ‘full-time equivalent’ jobs.

These jobs will be focused on increasing audit and fraud investigation activities, particularly following this summer’s vote by the UK to leave the EU.

With discussions ongoing between the Irish and UK governments as to how a new border will operate, there is no uncertainty over customs and excise fees existing between the two nations.

Yet fears surrounding a potential return to physical border controls and a possibility for the UK to place custom checkpoints at Ireland’s ports and airports is of concern to those in the Irish Government.

This goes against what the current Minister of State for European Affairs, Data Protection and the EU Single Digital Market Dara Murphy, TD, has said, adding that these advanced security measures are unnecessary.

Data analytics overhaul

The Minister however will see a bolstered Revenue office in terms of its capabilities of handling vast amounts of data, with a portion of the €5m allocated to it as part of Budget 2017 going towards its ICT systems.

Hiring Now

In further explaining what it will be used for, the Government has said that it will enhance the Revenue’s “capacity for data matching and data analytics” and “will lead to a direct increase in tax and duty yield from compliance interventions”.

Some other news announced by the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, TD, today was that Revenue intends to lead to a “fundamental redesign and modernisation” of the PAYE system.

This will include reducing contact necessary between employers and Revenue, as well as reducing administration costs for the two groups.

Updated, 5.46pm, 11 October 2016: A spokesperson for the Revenue Commissioners has given more details on the future 50 positions that will be filled.

“The timing of posts to be filled by external recruitment will depend on critical vacancies arising, projected business needs and the number of posts that can be filled through redeployment and from internal promotion panels,” she said.

“Therefore, it is not possible to set out the timing of external recruitment and our recruitment programme over the coming year will involve a combination of all potential options, appropriate to the critical vacancies arising.”

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As an award-winning editor for Consumer Magazine of the Year 2013, Colm joined Siliconrepublic.com in January 2014 as a journalist covering AI, IoT, science and anything that will get us to Mars quicker.
When not trying to get his hands on the latest gaming release, he can be found lost in a sea of Wikipedia articles on obscure historic battles and countries that don't exist anymore or watching classic Simpsons episodes far too many times to count.